Beauty, Mercy, Justice

My Favorite Catholic Comics Strike Again

Look, I’m not saying they are all wrong. Sometimes the best I can do is to recite the Litany of Peace from the Divine Liturgy (which happens to be a perfect prayer). It is just that they seem to totally miss Francis’ point, which it that prayer must be from the heart to truly be called prayer. Yes, of course, sometimes this can be so-called repetitive prayer.

After dealing with that, they broaden the discussion to include all the things that traditionalist and other conservative Catholics don’t like about Francis.

But then there is the delivery, which can only be called comic. It is really hard to believe that this is not caricature, a sort of Catholic Saturday Night Live.

And I say this fully cognitive of the fact that Mr Ferrera has been a faithful opponent of the libertarian/neocon attempt to hijack Catholic social teaching. It’s just that his other views are such a caricature.

These guys are clowns. They are a poor excuse for Catholics. The Pope is not saying, “Don’t pray the Rosary.” He is saying prayerfully pray the Rosary. Anyone who knows anything about the Rosary knows it is more than just memorized vocal prayer. It is actually the crucible for learning how to pray. We have three dogs inside of us running in three different directions — our imagination, our mouth and our heart. The Rosary puts the leash on these dogs and heads them in the same direction. So you can’t talk to the person next to you if you are vocally praying the Rosary. That’s one dog. Then the mysteries require you think about the life of Our Lord — meditate on Our Lord’s life. That’s another dog. And if that dog wasn’t leashed you’d be thinking about what you are going to cook for dinner. Instead, you are hiding behind the curtain with God the Father waiting to see what Marry will say when His angel asks her to be the Mother of His Son. The third dog is the heart. One can be praying vocally and meditating, but your heart is far from what you are doing. You must actually put yourself in the situation. Become involved. Offer a comment. Get your heart involved. Frankly, when I pray the Rosary I end up crying. This means I have connected with God. I have prayed. And that’s what the Pope wants. These jokers say the Rosary comes from God, and it does! But the pope certainly is not saying “don’t pray the Rosary.” Are these clowns just distractedly saying their Rosary? Do they think this is enough. A for effort? We’ll really pray when we get to the unitive stage? God is ashamed of them if they take a prayer from heaven and turn it into vocal rote. And pope Francis is not saying we have to have consolations in prayer. Heavens he’s been trained in real true Jesuit discernment. The Pope’s talking on a very high level, which is very simple. It’s the Pope’s approach they don’t like. They want him to rail against atheists, Muslims, contracepting couples. The Pope is talking nice to people outside the Church and railing against Catholics not practicing their faith, they say. My goodness, they don’t realize this is exactly what St. Paul did in the Epistles and Acts. Ignorant ignoramuses. Susan Foxhttp://www.ChristsFaithfulWitness.com

The Pope is not saying, “Don’t pray the Rosary.” He is saying prayerfully pray the Rosary. Anyone who knows anything about the Rosary knows it is more than just memorized vocal prayer.

Then why doesn’t he just say that? To my knowledge he has never made a clear statement about how to pray the Rosary. But all of that aside, why does he — and others — apparently think traditional Catholics pray the Rosary “incorrectly”? What evidence is there for such a claim? Why is there an automatic presumption in play now that Catholics who are attached to traditional liturgy, prayers, and pious practices are more likely than not doing them in a mechanical, empty, and — dare I say — “uninspired” fashion? There’s no evidence for it; the decision to make that presumption is a choice — one which is, dare I also say this, ideologically inspired?

I’m assuming the first part is a quote from Pope Francis. If this is the case, I wonder, what is so terrible about what the pope is saying? He’s right, just reciting prayers isn’t praying. It’s about an internal state.

I will say, in their defense, we must be careful that we do not equate praying with consolation. I said prayer was about an internal state, but I realized that was not the best phrase, since prayer is not about feelings. It does, however, involve focus and intention, the intent to speak to God.

Clearly nobody read the Pope’s words, their context, and or paid much attention to his other dismissive statements regarding traditional Catholics. This isn’t two guys jumping on one misstatement by the Pope; it’s two guys who have followed his statements over the past year expressing their deep discomfort with what the Pope has said. The prayer/praying distinction, no matter how you try to whitewash it, was not as innocently given as you imply here. It was made in the context of going after “ideological Catholics” which, in context, meant traditional Catholics. (The Pope has previously mocked traditional Catholics for counting Rosaries, after all.) Moreover, I think Matt and Ferrera are right: What exactly is the Pope calling Catholics to do? If he simply wants to remind Catholics not to pray purely by rote, why not just say that? It seems like an odd thing for a Pope to expound on anyway, particularly in the context in which his words were delivered.

You can sugarcoat it any way you want, but it’s pretty difficult to read Francis’ views on traditional Catholicism as anything but myopic, childish, and uncharitable. He creates a caricature of traditional Catholics and then proceeds to take shots at it, as if the caricature is in any way, shape, or form representative. He doesn’t know their heart, but he claims, on the basis of certain practices they engage in, to have an insight that they may — or probably aren’t — “really praying.” Imagine the fallout if he had said those words with respect to the Eastern Orthodox. Ah, but he’s just going after trads, and we all know that trad Catholics are a bunch of hypocritical legalists with a Latin fetish…not “Real Catholics” who are apparently capable of having divine intimacy in their bedrooms.

As a last point, after listening to a chunk of the video again, I don’t hear anything silly in their delivery. It’s not a caricature, though I think one could reproach both Matt and Ferrera for being a bit too sarcastic and hyperbolic. Based on other videos I’ve watched, I think the hyperbole is intentional — “Are there two parallel universes in which Catholics go to hell and nobody else does?” Of course the Pope isn’t saying that, but M&F are right that some of his words — and the words of other high ranking Catholic prelates — clears the pathway for some pretty absurd conclusions. Oh, but I suppose it’s the job of the Vatican Press Office to sort that stuff out.

The pope’s comments should be seen in the context of Latin America, where traditionalism is often aligned with vicious rightist ideology, a sort of Christofascism, if you will. Nor is that entirely foreign in the US, as anyone, including yours truly, who has frequented Latin Masses can attest. That his words, so obviously meant to recall us to the heart of the gospel, the truth of divine mercy, inspires such a reaction (and sorry, I find these guys immensely comical) only proves them to be accurate.

The problem here is that empirical reality doesn’t support the caricature. Traditional Catholicism, which was a far smaller movement in the 70s and 80s than it is today, was not at the heart of supporting brutal Latin American regimes. They simply did not have the numbers, nor did they have the priests. The SSPX, for instance, is far larger today than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago. The same can be said for other trad groups. Most of the Catholics who supported those movements and regimes would have been regular Novus Ordo Catholics. Moreover, having interacted with major centers of traditional Catholicism in the U.S., I can say you are more likely to find Tea Party-types (who are libertarians or quasi-libertarians) among that crowd than die-hard fascists of any sort. Richard Williamson, who, despite his Holocaust denying ways, is not a fascist nor a supporter of fascist regimes (he’s a monarchist if anything), is not representative of the traditional Catholic position.

They do have a point the Pope seems to have missed however- memorized prayer can be a conduit to listening prayer. A way to focus the mind on God. And that isn’t limited to Christianity either; Hindu Yoga also uses this form of meditation.